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20 Then Noah built an altar for YHWH. וַיִּ֥בֶן נֹ֛חַ מִזְבֵּ֖חַ לַֽי׳הוָ֑ה
There’s plenty to discuss just in this first short phrase from Gen 8:20. However, let’s begin with this description by Mark Twain, from Chapter 30 of Life on the Mississippi, of high water on the river:
It was a big river, below Memphis; banks brimming full, everywhere, and very frequently more than full, the waters pouring out over the land, flooding the woods and fields for miles into the interior; and in places, to a depth of fifteen feet; signs, all about, of men's hard work gone to ruin, all to be done over again, with straitened means and a weakened courage. A melancholy picture, and a continuous one; — hundreds of miles of it.
Can’t say anything about “weakened courage,” but no one ever had more “straitened means” than Noah & fam when they stepped onto the newly-dry land after the Flood. What’s the first thing you might want to do in that situation? Quiz time!
A) start clearing away some of the rubble
B) build a house
C) build a barn
D) plant a garden
E) take a long walk to stretch your legs
F) kill some of the animals you’ve been keeping alive for a year
If you are Noah, it turns out, the correct answer is F. The presumption — read on, if you like; you will not see it stated explicitly — is that this is a gesture of thanks to YHWH for saving their lives while the rest of the living creatures perished. We’ve seen such gestures before:
Gen 4:3 At the end of a year Cain brought some of the fruit of the earth as a gift to YHWH. 4 Abel too brought some of the firstborn of his flock and some of their suets.
Read more about those offerings here and here; go here for the whole story. One thing you’ll notice is that there is no altar in Genesis 4, even though Abel is presumably killing sheep just as Noah will shortly do.
We’ve seen YHWH God building a “joist” into a woman (2:22) and Cain building a city (4:17), but this is the first time we’ve seen anyone building a religious structure. (We don’t know where the boys brought their offerings.) In fact, we are seeing the word מִזְבֵּ֖חַ mizbe’aḥ ‘altar’ for the first time in the Bible. It will appear another 400 times in the Bible before we’re done.
And, yes, the root of this noun is זבח z‑b‑ḥ ‘slaughter’ (found 134 times as a verb in the Bible and 162 times as a noun meaning ‘a sacrifice’). You can burn grain offerings on an altar or pour a libation of wine on it, but its basic purpose is to offer animals to God, implicitly serving him with a portion of meat. The root טבח ṭ‑b‑ḥ ‘butcher’ is related to it. Chapter 1 of Aramaic on One Foot will explain more about that; I’ll link to it here when it appears, in about six weeks.
Now let’s look at where we’ll be seeing these altars. In the Torah, at least, here’s where they appear:
Genesis — 13 times (0.40 hits per 1000 words)
Exodus — 59 times (2.23)
Leviticus — 87 times (4.66)
Numbers — 29 times (1.14)
Deuteronomy — 10 times (0.42)
Even if we subtract the 7 times it occurs in Exodus before the description of the Tabernacle begins and the 8 times it occurs in Numbers in the story of Balaam, it’s easy to see that this is a priestly word. No surprise! A layman can slaughter an animal, but only a priest can offer it as a sacrifice.
Oops! Noah is not a priest! Fortunately, we’re reading the J source right now, which has quite a number of altars built by people who are not priests, for the simple reason that there are no Israelite priests yet.
BDB, the century-old Biblical Hebrew dictionary that dates to an era when the Documentary Hypothesis reigned supreme, tells us this about the word מִזְבֵּ֖חַ (I’ve heavily abridged it):
1. JE narrate that altars were built by Noah after leaving the ark Gn 8:20; by Abraham at Shechem 12:7, Bethel 12:8, Hebron 13:18, mt. in land Moriah 22:9; by Isaac at Beersheba 26:25; by Jacob at Shechem 33:20 (perh. mistake for מַצֵּבָה), at Bethel 35:7, by Moses at Rephidim Ex 17:15, Horeb 24:4, by Balak at Bamoth Baal, Pisgah, & Peor Nu 23:1, 23:14, 23:29 [and by everyone from Joshua to Elijah].
2. D prescribes one central altar.
3. P limits sacrifices to the altars of the tabernacle. P describes two altars:
a. the מִזְבַּח הָעֹלָה [altar for burnt offering] made of acacia wood plated with brass, 5 × 5 × 3 cubits in size, with four horns and a network of brass, on which all sacrifices by fire were made;
b. מ׳ מִקְטַר קְטֹרֶת [incense altar] made of acacia wood plated with gold, 1 × 1 × 2 cubits in size, with four horns and a crown of gold.
4. Solomon made two altars for the temple at Jerusalem.
5. Ezekiel plans two altars for the new temple.
… [not to mention 9 more entries]
This is something that goes far, far back in Israelite history, just as we would imagine. In one version of the Flood story, nothing could be more natural than that Noah would offer a sacrifice. (Of the other Flood heroes, Ziusudra offers animal sacrifices; Utnapishtim offers incense.)
Is this an altar “to” or “for” YHWH? Could we tell by looking at it? How does Noah indicate to/for whom he is offering the sacrifices he’s about to make? We’ll have another chance to ask those questions, and I’ll have some more time to think about them, in a year or so when Abram, the Bible’s great multiple-altar-builder, appears on the scene. Next time, at any rate, Noah will be the second person in the Bible — after Abel — to offer animal sacrifice.